I have got several fantastic boy friends. Strain your eyes, Reader. It is boy friends, two words with a space in between. I am going to tell you, in this journal entry, about the comical way our friendship started. We used to be classmates.

Our friendship got going in an embarrassing way. One day I was doing some searches online with my QQ on, Mum seated beside me on her own job. I noticed my QQ icon flashing. It was a message alert from the instant messenger. I clicked it without thinking twice. Guess what, it came from a boy called Abe in my class. The message read, “I like you.”

So much blown away was I that my mind went blank at that very moment. To my horror, I realised that my mum was just by my side. Before I could close the dialogue box, I found Mum peeping at my PC monitor. I was totally speechless, my heart racing, while I frantically had a brainstorm trying to come up with an explanation. But whatever I was mentally making up could not hold water, so I managed a nervous smile on my face. Before I could say a word, my mum shot a glance at me, amused, and said, “Wow, it’s awesome, my dear! I believe you can sort it out properly, can’t you?” Then she walked off and left me alone.

Having cleared my mind, I told Abe that we could be just good friends. Actually, our relationship stayed just at the friends level after that. There were times when it was difficult to walk a fine line between friendship and romance, but we managed it anyway after some tries. Today the boy and I can share happiness and sorrow with each other. When one is in need, the other is always there. With my mum I can talk openly about the kind smart boy since she knew it from the very beginning.

Had my mum not been open-minded, I could not have such a friend of the opposite sex today and I could not be close to my mum, either. The majority of Chinese parents around me have zero tolerance for their teenage children’s relationship with a person of the opposite sex. In their eyes, if a boy and a girl are together, there is only one possibility: they are dating each other.

This experience of mine is just between my mum and me. We keep Dad in the dark about it. It seems that all Chinese fathers hate boys who approach their daughters.

I hope this pure relationship of mine with Abe lasts into the future.